Version 9.0 of Add-in Express for Office is out!

Long-term customers of Add-in Express know that we usually sim-ship new releases with new versions of Microsoft Office. This time is different. While Microsoft guys are probably still working on the new features of Office 2019, the new major version of Add-in Express for Office is live already.

What’s new in version 9.0

Support for the background loading and initialization of the Add-in Express package in Visual Studio 2017.

“Is this worth a new major version?” you may ask. We believe it is. Our main goal for this release is to support all the breaking changes that the developers of managed add-ins will have to deal with to support multi-dpi and multi-monitor configurations. From my experience, this new feature is likely to break many existing add-ins…

Licensing changes

These licensing changes apply to the following products:

Add-in Express for Office and .net, version 9.x

Add-in Express for Office and Delphi VCL, version 9.x

Add-in Express Regions for Microsoft Outlook and VSTO, version 4.x

The new versions of the above products are available solely on the subscription basis. Meaning, only customers with active subscriptions will be able to install the latest version of the product.

De jure, we declared 1 year of minor or minor and major updates, depending on the subscription, in the previous versions. De facto, we never bothered to check the purchase date and allowed installing any build within the major version that you bought. In the new version, we have finally implemented a more elaborate key validation scheme. So, if during installation you get the “Your subscription is expired and does not allow installing this build” message, please check your order date before you do anything else :)

If your subscription has expired, don’t worry, you can keep using your current version as long as you want or install a newer version that was published during the term of your subscription.

Important note! All these changes apply only to the above-mentioned versions. Your use of the previous versions is governed by the EULA in effect at the time of purchase (which is included in the installation package). For the sake of clarity, the Standard subscription of Add-in Express for Office (v.1.x – 8.x) and Add-in Express Regions for Microsoft Outlook and VSTO (v.1.x – 3.x) includes 60 days of tech support and 1 year of minor updates.

Support for Office 2019

At the moment, we cannot say when the new Office version will be supported because the Office 2019 release date is not known yet. As soon as we get Office 2019 via our partner update channel, we will start working on it. Usually, it takes us 4 – 6 weeks to support a new major Office version.

This technology is now available for our custom development services only. Based on the Add-in Express for Office core, it is designed for building custom-tailored Office add-ins with far less coding than you usually have to do. Plus, it includes all Add-in Express features such as True RAD, visual designers, Outlook view and form regions, etc.

Get the best platform for building version-neutral, fast and easy deployable plug-ins by using Add-in Express projects templates, visual designers, components and wizards in combination with a perfect Delphi compiler.

This is an extension for Visual Studio that allows developers to quickly create WiX-based setup projects in a familiar Visual Studio way.

The Designer for WiX Toolset lets you forget the plain Windows Installer XML and concentrate on your deployment logic. It integrates several editors with the Visual Studio IDE and provides a set of vdproj designers to configure the file system, registry, user interface, custom actions, launch conditions and more for your setup projects.

The innovative technology for customizing Outlook views and forms. It is included in all Add-in Express for Office products and can be used to extend Outlook views, e-mail, task and appointment windows, To-Do bar, Reading and Navigation panes with your own custom sub-panes.

Microsoft and the Office logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in
the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.